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Top 7 Online Team Collaboration Tools

We know brainstorming is a great process for coming up with new, innovative product concepts in the nutraceutical space. But what if you aren’t able to get the team together in the same room? Luckily, collaboration technology has come a long way in the past few years, and there are now plenty of ways for everyone to stay on the same page and make innovative magic happen.

The following are our recommended top 7 online team collaboration tools to keep the entire team engaged and productive as you work through ideas for supplements and functional food products.

1. WebEx
This online meeting tool gives everyone on your team the opportunity to meet in one virtual place regardless of their geographic location. Like other conferencing tools, the only thing needed is a computer with internet connection. Team members can share screens while video conferencing or hold webinars for training. Cisco Spark is a messaging service that works well with WebEx. Plans begin at $19/month.

2. Skype
Just when you thought Skype was only used for chatting with friends and family, you’ll be happy to know that this easy-to-use messaging application also offers a business version. With a variety of different pricing plans starting at just $5/month, Skype can be used for video or voice calls, as well as email hosting and OneDrive storage.

3. Google DriveGoogle docs and Google sheets synchronizes files across all devices allowing teams to effortlessly share documents. Multiple users can edit the same document at once,allowing teams to collaborate on the same document in real time. Instead of worrying about losing a team member’s contribution or overwriting important data, each team member gets a different color for editing. You’ll get 15 GB of free space but if you need more, plans begin at $1.99/month.

4. Slack
When you want to connect in the digital workplace, Slack is a great way for everyone to participate in real time chats. Documents, pictures and ideas can be shared either as a group or privately with individuals. You can leave a message for a team member if they are not online and you can even search past conversations. This service is free, but can be upgraded for more features.

5. Dropbox
This cloud file storage solution is great for keeping everyone on the same page – particularly if the page is huge! It’s a centralized place for storing documents, photos, video files and more for files that are just too big to send over email. Members can get access to a specific folder or the whole file. For up to 1 TB of storage, Dropbox costs $8.25/month. A free trial is available.

6. Confluence
Specifically built to improve productivity, members of the team can share and collaborate on documents in one place for easy access, organization and publishing. Most often used as a software documentation platform to support dev teams, it easily integrates with Jira, a software development ticketing service. More and more teams are beginning to use it for document sharing, as well.

7. ConnectTeam
Effortlessly put the business process on a mobile platform with this service. This product enables accountability improvement and puts the breaks on constant email notification. Like the other collaboration tools, it allows teams to work and communicate in in real-time.

As you can see, there are many ways for you and your team to stay connected even if everyone is in a different place. The aforementioned platforms are amazing tools that can help support the processes you’ve established to make the most of your collaborative efforts.

Although there are many differing tools out there, you may want to streamline your toolset and only use one or two to support the management of your teams. Too many collaborative tools can have the opposite effect on productivity.

By working together with these great, and often free tools, you’ll help everyone stay on track in every single phase of the project life cycle. Happy collaborating!

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